Welcome to the next episode of the JCPodcast, co-hosted by Rabbi Deena and Rabbi Sam.
As we continue to navigate this painful time, JCP’s rabbis share thoughts on this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Lech Lecha, and reflect on our community’s commitment to our values and to one another. You can listen to this episode here.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Deena and Rabbi Sam
| וַתִּשָּׁחֵ֥ת הָאָ֖רֶץ לִפְנֵ֣י הָֽאֱלֹהִ֑ים וַתִּמָּלֵ֥א הָאָ֖רֶץ חָמָֽס׃ |
| “The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness and violence” (Genesis 6:11). |
These words appear at the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Noach. Today, we are living these words as our reality. This is not an abstraction; it is literal. The Hebrew word “violence” in this verse is hamas.
Last week, Israel was filled with Hamas, the internationally recognized terrorist organization that infiltrated its borders and wrought destruction and havoc, and with the Torah’s understanding of hamas: violence, lawlessness, devastation, and heartbreak.
The Talmud teaches us: “To destroy one life is to destroy the entire world…to save one life is to save the entire world” (Sanhedrin 37a). Last week, when Jews were murdered in their homes, when hundreds were kidnapped, when they were humiliated, and when their communities were destroyed, so many worlds—along with the hearts of the Jewish people—were destroyed. Who could ever have thought that we would once again experience such a brutal attack, and have to feel this immense grief? I thought this type of violence against Jews was consigned to the dark pages of our history books. But today, we are living it. In the words of my colleague, Rabbi Sharon Brous, “It will take generations for us to recover from the psychic wounds we have incurred this past week.”
The Torah tells us that God could not abide this world of violence—humanity could not recover from the wounds they were inflicting upon each other—and decided to destroy the world in a flood and begin anew. Only Noah, his family, and a few lucky pairs of animals were saved.
As I picture Noah huddled in his ark, alone and afraid of the destruction taking place all around him, I think of my Israeli friends, hiding in their safe rooms, wondering when this nightmare will end, when it will be safe to go outside, and how they will ever begin to rebuild.
After the flood, God recognizes that destroying the earth is not a viable solution. God comes to see that there will always be incomprehensible violence and unmitigated pain caused by humans, but that there is also hope that we can do better. God says: “I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Genesis 9:12). God sets a rainbow in the sky as a sign of this promise.
As worlds are destroyed around us, and as our hearts break as we witness the devastation, it is up to us to serve as the rainbow, the goodness that God saw in the world when God promised never again to destroy it.
I am amazed and inspired by our community at JCP. We are that rainbow. We have come together in solidarity, for each other and for our Israeli siblings, who have shared that our support means so much to them. We have called our friends, given hugs, cried, held each other’s pain, shared our grief, and prayed together. We have donated to Israeli organizations that are stepping up in this time of crisis. We have protected ourselves. We have stood by Israel as so many condoned this terrorist attack, which is an attack against Jews everywhere.
There will be challenges ahead, many of which we are already confronting. We have to witness as people question Israel’s right to defend itself. We also have to witness a painful war, and the tragedy of civilian deaths. And we have to wonder what lies ahead.
But through it all, my hope is that we can continue to be the rainbow, the bright spot in the darkness, the goodness that keeps our broken world afloat.
There is so much pain and sadness for us to hold. Throughout it all, may we continue to come together during this terrible time, as our people have done for centuries.
Shabbat shalom,
Deena
Sometimes you learn something that just sticks with you. On the first day of my high school Psychology class, we did a memory exercise. The teacher read a list of 40 simple words—think “cat,” “book,” “house,” and we were told to remember as many as we could without writing them down. At the end of the exercise, she asked us to share which words from the list we remembered. Very few of us remembered words from the middle of the list; most memorable were words from the beginning and the end. This exercise helped to show that our memories of beginnings and endings (of lists of words or of experiences) tend to be particularly powerful. (And I now reflect on the fact that this exercise happened on the first day of school, further demonstrating the point!)
On Sunday, we celebrate the holiday of Simchat Torah, where the beginning and end of the Torah come into focus. On this holiday—the last of many during the Hebrew month of Tishrei!—we complete the annual Torah reading cycle and begin anew.
As the Torah closes and we complete the book of Deuteronomy (D’varim in Hebrew), we find the Israelites on the border of Eretz Yisrael, approaching the Promised Land after so many years of journeying through the wilderness. Their longtime leader, Moses, knows that he is about to die, and he selects a successor, Joshua, who will help them reach their destination and settle into their new home.
We then roll the Torah all the way back to the beginning, to the book of Genesis (Beresheet in Hebrew), where we encounter the famous lines narrating the creation story:
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם
In the Beginning, God created heaven and earth
the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep
(Genesis 1:1-2)
At the beginning of the Torah, nothing exists. The universe is a total void, filled with darkness. By the end of the Torah, we recall all that we have read and experienced as the story unfolded before us: natural disaster, sibling rivalry, true faith, liberation, ethical leadership, legal pronouncements, Divine revelation, long journeys, moments of devastation, moments of elation, and everything in between. We witness as a group of people form relationships with each other and with God and together try to decide what it means to be a holy community. From start to finish, the Torah takes us from the nothingness that precedes the creation of the world through the formation of robust, complex, and sacred societies. It’s quite a journey that we take each year!
But as different as the beginning and the end of the Torah may seem, they are united by a theme of possibility. At the beginning of the Torah, we (and God) get to anticipate the kind of world that will be created. What will it look like? How will it work? God begins with a blank slate and we anticipate the masterpiece God will create. At the end of the Torah, we are left on the precipice of the Israelites’ next chapter. How will they feel when they arrive in the land of Israel after waiting so long for this moment? What kind of society will they build? Will they heed Moses’ final words of advice that he shared before his death? It’s a perfect cliffhanger as we imagine what might be in store though the next stage of the Israelite journey.
If it’s true that we tend to remember beginnings and endings, then one central message of the Torah is this: No matter where we are in our journeys, the possibilities in front of us are endless.
Shabbat Shalom, and Chag Sameach,
Deena
Oy, oy, oy—what a week of pain, of violence, of suffering we have just witnessed. The news and social media have been covered with intense, terrifying images. There is so much to say, so much to feel, so much support deeply needed in Israel and in our community at home. I have been grateful to gather with some of you earlier this week, providing some of that for one another.
This week, we read parashat B’reishit, the first chapters of Genesis. Sukkot and the High Holy Days are behind us; our ancient calendar tells us it is a time of new beginnings. We read in parashat B’reishit this weekend about the creation of humanity, a beautiful metaphor that teaches that all humans are created in God’s image. We learn about the first humans, who live in the garden of Eden, blissfully unaware of the complications of being human. What a beautiful story to begin our year!
I had hoped to use this d’var Torah to introduce myself, to share that I’ll be at JCP one day a week this upcoming year, and to say how much I look forward to seeing you at Shabbat, b’nai mitzvahs, and other community celebrations.
And yet, the beginning that we face this year is not the beginning that we would have chosen. Hamas decided that it would be the beginning of terrible violence, an attack on Israel different from anything we have seen in the past 50 years. We, across the world, watched as our precious homeland was attacked by an internationally recognized military group who does not want peace. Family members and friends are called up from the army reserves. Others were forced from their homes, their streets, murdered or kidnapped. Others remain at home, trying to create a semblance of normalcy for their children, despite schools being closed and activities canceled.
Indeed, we are far from Eden, the fertile garden where the first humans lived in blissful innocence. The Jewish state has a long and complicated road ahead.
So what is there for us?
The Rabbi of Kotzk, who lived in Poland from 1787-1859, was famous for saying “Jews don’t despair.” Indeed, we have thousands of years of inherited Jewish wisdom to lean on. We are storytellers:
When the first humans had to leave the garden of Eden and learned the price of knowledge, we told the story.
When our people was oppressed by the Pharoah, we asked God for help, supported human leaders (Moses, Aaron and Miriam), found our way out, and then told the story.
When we experienced the destruction of our Holiest place, the Temple, we told the story and re-envisioned what Jewish life could look like.
So, too, is our task: to support one another so that we can tell the story. A story of unity, perseverance, hope—Hatikvah, and ultimately: peace.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Sam
After our journey through the High Holy Days, I am always excited when we reach the holiday of Sukkot. The excitement is in the name, as Sukkot is often called Z’man Simchateinu, or “The Time for our Rejoicing.” There are many customs for Sukkot: Building a Sukkah, a temporary outdoor dwelling in which we can eat, hang out, and even sleep; inviting guests to share the Sukkah; and praying for rain in the land of Israel (Sukkot marks the beginning of the rainy season there). But one of our most interesting and most puzzling customs is the shaking of the lulav, and it is the one that people ask me about the most.
The Torah commands us to take four different types of plants: a palm branch (lulav); a myrtle branch (hadas), a willow branch (aravah), and a citron (etrog), also called the “fruit of the beautiful tree” (Leviticus 23:40). Later, the Talmud tells us to bring these different species together and shake them in every direction (Sukkot, 37b). But it doesn’t tell us why.
Many Jews who came before us were similarly puzzled by this practice. How does shaking plants have anything to do with our religious lives? Explanations abound. Some say that the sound that the branches make when they are shaken reminds us of the sound of the rain. Some say that these beautiful plants help us to recognize the bounty of the natural landscape of Israel. But one of my favorite explanations is from a 13th century work of Jewish Law called Sefer HaChinukh, which explains all 613 commandments of Judaism. The anonymous author writes the following:
These four species are similar to the precious limbs of a human being…The citron is similar to the heart, which is the dwelling place of the intellect…the lulav is similar to the backbone…the myrtle [leaves are] similar to the eyes…and the willow [leaves are] similar to the lips (Sefer HaChinukh, 324).
If you look at the lulav, it is striking how each of the plants resembles these different parts of the body. The author claims that all of the parts of the human body have a role to play in praising God, and that when they are brought together, humans can reach the Divine in new ways.
Throughout Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we spent time focusing on our goals and aspirations in the new year. On Sukkot, the lulav provides this tangible metaphor for how we can achieve those goals and turn our aspirations into reality. The upright palm branch reminds us to have integrity and to act ethically in all of our interactions. The myrtle leaves remind us to be thoughtful in how we see the world. The thin leaves of the willow remind us that the words of our lips have a great deal of power. The etrog reminds us that our hearts can always be open, ready to show each other compassion and kindness.
As we approach Sukkot and shake the lulav together, may we fulfill our hopes for this new year, and find many reasons to rejoice.
Shabbat shalom, and Chag sameach,
Deena
Welcome to the next episode of the JCPodcast with our new co-host, Rabbi Sam!
This week, Rabbi Sam and Rabbi Deena are talking about Shabbat Shuva, the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Tune in to hear what inspires them at this sacred time of year! You can listen to the episode here.
Shanah Tovah – Wishing you a Sweet New Year…
G’mar Chatimah Tovah – May you be Sealed in the Book of Life and Blessings…
And Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Sam & Rabbi Deena
Tonight, as the sun sets, we welcome both Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah, the New Year of 5784.
As I shared last week, the Hebrew month of Elul, which precedes Rosh Hashanah, is a time for spiritual reflection and preparation. The ancient Rabbis loved finding special meaning in biblical words and phrases, and they discovered that a verse in Song of Songs, a biblical book of love poetry, is an acronym for Elul (spelled אלול in Hebrew):
אני לדודי ודודי לי
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine (Song of Songs 6:3).
It’s no accident that the Rabbis highlighted Divine love at the beginning of this sacred season. During the High Holy Days, we focus on our shortcomings and on God’s judgment. So much of our liturgy claims that we have sinned, and that God has noticed. But the Rabbis also wanted us to remember that God is ready and excited to reconnect with us, and ultimately to forgive us, at this time of year. Though the High Holy Days are a time for repentance, they are also a time for renewed affection between God and the Jewish people.
The Alter Rebbe (founder of the Chabad movement, 1745-1812) emphasizes the experience of God’s closeness during the month of Elul. He taught that for the rest of the year, God lives in a palace, high above the earth, accessible to humans only when we go through the appropriate channels. But during Elul, God leaves the palace and greets everyone in the fields. At this time of year, God is more readily available to connect as we embark on our process of teshuva (repentance), t’filah (prayer), and tzedakah (righteous action).
Tonight, the month of Elul comes to a close. We wrap up our preparation as we greet the new year, ready for renewed connection to our truest selves, to each other, and perhaps even to the Divine. I am excited to begin this journey together.
Welcome back! We have entered a true season of transition: Many of us have already started exchanging sandals for boots, iced coffee for pumpkin spice, beach bags for backpacks. We at JCP have been gearing up for a fantastic year ahead, and we can’t wait to see everyone back in the neighborhood soon.
Of course, we are also preparing for a meaningful and uplifting High Holy Days season as a community. At this time of year, I always appreciate the beautiful convergence of the Jewish calendar and the secular one. As we come back together after a season apart, we get to celebrate so many new beginnings.
Just as we work hard to prepare during the months leading up to the school year, the Jewish calendar builds in time for us to prepare for the High Holy Days. Rosh Hashanah falls on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei each year. But the High Holy Day season doesn’t start then. The Hebrew month preceding Tishrei, called Elul, is a time dedicated to a process called cheshbon ha’nefesh. This phrase is often translated as “accounting of the soul” (in modern Hebrew, a check in a restaurant is a “cheshbon,” as is a bank account!). If Rosh Hashanah is an opportunity to begin a new year with a clean slate, the month of Elul is an opportunity to decide on the changes that we want to make in the year ahead. Making improvements in our lives and in our relationships starts by identifying our goals and reflecting on how we might achieve them. And that process takes time.
Jewish tradition has tools to help us get into this mindset of spiritual preparation. One of the most powerful ones is the practice of reciting Psalm 27 daily. This psalm was likely chosen because it closes with the word lulei (לולא) which, in Hebrew, is the word Elul (אלול) backwards.
The psalm reflects the fact that spiritual preparation is not all blissful. We often have to do hard work to make necessary changes in our lives. The psalmist experiences the struggles and doubts that come with loneliness and hardship. But he also experiences the comfort and reassurance of God’s presence. One of the most famous lines of the psalm says:
One thing I ask of the Eternal,
only this do I seek:
to live in the house of the Eternal
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon God’s beauty,
And to visit God’s temple.
For the psalmist, this desire to connect with God serves as an anchor amidst the challenges and chaos of life.
Musician Aly Halpert recently composed a stunning musical setting for this psalm, and we are excited to share it with you throughout High Holy Day services. You can listen to the recording here.
As we transition into this sacred season, may we find the strength and courage for cheshbon ha’nefesh to renew our lives in the year ahead.
Yesterday, we marked Tisha B’Av, a day of fasting and mourning in the Jewish calendar. On this sad day, we remember the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem, as well as other calamities that have befallen the Jewish people.
One of the very first nights of my very first summer at Jewish sleepaway camp fell on Tisha B’Av. I, having never before heard of the holiday, felt the acute sadness of the day as we sat on the ground of the gym with the lights off, using flashlights to illuminate our Bibles as we chanted from the graphically violent Book of Lamentations. In a letter home, I remember writing: “I hope camp gets more fun.”
But the first Shabbat after Tisha B’Av is called Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort (and by then, camp indeed became more fun). On this Shabbat, we read from the Book of Isaiah (40:1-2), which states:
Comfort, oh comfort My people,
Says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
And declare to her
That her term of service is over,
That her iniquity is expiated;
For she has received at the hand of God
Double for all her sins.
From Shabbat Nachamu onward, we are led out of the period of sadness and mourning, into a period of redemption, forgiveness, and grace. This period of comfort culminates in the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, where we have the opportunity to reflect on our past mistakes and begin anew.
It is fitting to conclude our exploration of life cycle rituals as we enter Shabbat Nachamu. Rituals around concluding a period of study, recovering from illness, welcoming a new baby, converting to Judaism, coming of age, getting married, and mourning the loss of a loved one all have one thing in common: they are designed to bring us comfort.
Many life cycle moments are joyful, some are painful. But all involve immense and intense change. Our rituals are designed to hold and guide us through those changes, to comfort us, and to support us as we face new realities.
Speaking of the Jewish calendar, the D’var Torah will be on a brief hiatus for the month of August as we prepare for a meaningful and uplifting High Holy Day season at JCP. Be sure to join or renew your membership in order to receive your complimentary tickets!
May this Shabbat, and all the moments along your own life cycle journey, be filled with the comfort provided by ritual and community.
Shabbat shalom,
Deena
Weddings involve an interesting dichotomy:
On the one hand, a wedding is all about the people who are getting married. Through their love and their commitment, the couple chooses the other as their beloved partner. Jewish tradition claims that the love between spouses is unique, set aside just for them since the days of Creation, in the Garden of Eden.
On the other hand, a wedding takes place in the context of a larger community. In the secular sphere, a wedding changes the status of a couple in the eyes of the State. Our institutions relate to the couple in a new way, and they can now legally share more aspects of their lives, like a surname. In the Jewish context, the purpose of a wedding is to establish a bayit ne’eman b’Yisrael, a faithful household within the community of Israel. As much as the wedding is about the two individuals, it is also about the couple’s role in the story of the Jewish people, who, throughout history, kept our traditions alive in the homes that they built together.
All Jewish wedding rituals beautifully capture the truth in both of these statements, yet there is no better example than the Sheva Brachot, or Seven Blessings, that are recited during the ceremony:
Each blessing is beautiful on its own. But taken together, they form a stunning progression, at first capturing the expanse of the universe, and then continuously zooming in to focus on the specific couple standing under the wedding canopy:
During a Jewish wedding ceremony, we acknowledge the unique bond of the couple, and we also honor how their love story fits into the larger narrative of the Jewish people and the world at large. Just as these two individuals are brought together under the chuppah, so too are these two concepts, deepening the joy of this special day.
